Opinion: World leaders hustle in the dark as Trump hyper-churns US foreign policy

The real task for world leaders is de-risking Trump’s tariff tornadoes and the collateral damages of how he views European allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region

By Monish Tourangbam

To say that America’s foreign policy has undergone a dramatic shift under the second Donald Trump presidency would be an understatement. That a second Trump Presidency would be more disruptive compared to his first term was clear to all, but the slew of executive orders he has passed and the policy pronouncements (rather threats!) to adversaries and allies alike have surprised the world. Not only American politics and society but also the whole world is on their toes, bracing for the Trump turbulence in the next four years.

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The Big Shift

Trump 1.0 clearly established a four-year record of transactional foreign policy in the name of ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again’, throwing off balance decades of US foreign policy continuities, and in the firing line of Trump’s dictates were America’s European allies. A bulwark of the Western alliance and a mainstay of America’s alliance framework, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has come under severe strain under Trump’s presidencies. Even Democratic administrations, including that of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, pushed NATO member countries to increase their share of defence budgets, and decrease undue dependence on the US for European security.

However, the Trump administration’s demand for NATO countries to increase their defence spending to 5 per cent of the GDP has rattled major European capitals. At the same time, NATO partners and Ukraine have been kept out of the negotiations that Washington has started with Moscow, on ending the Ukraine war. This led to France holding an emergency meeting of European leaders on the Ukraine war, as concerns mount that President Trump, in a haste to deliver a campaign promise, would end up in tradeoffs with Moscow at the cost of Ukraine and NATO partners.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, has reportedly, offered lucrative business and economic profits for US companies in Russia, and a partnership in mining rare earth minerals in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Simultaneously, reports point to a likely deal between Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on critical minerals.

President Zelenskyy who was earlier the toast of town in Washington DC, and welcomed as a defender of Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, now finds himself at a precarious curve in Trump’s agenda in Europe. The Trump presidential campaign promise to end the Ukraine war, and his disagreements with Biden’s strategy were palpable, but the speed and manner in which he has gone about negotiating directly with Moscow, has upended US foreign policy fundamentally, the seismic ramifications of which, will be felt in the days to come.

New US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for instance, declared null and void two of Ukraine’s objectives: joining NATO and restoring its territory to pre-2014 borders. President Trump has called the Ukrainian President a “dictator”, and President Zelenskyy, reacting to the US-Russia talks excluding Ukraine, commented that Trump was “living in a disinformation space” controlled by Russia.

De-Risking Trump

Moreover, Trump’s undeterred push for reciprocity in tariffs, irrespective of allies and adversaries, has included signing an executive order putting a 25 per cent tariff on all steel and aluminium imports into the US, overriding previous exemptions granted to the EU and the UK.

Addressing the World Economic Forum virtually, President Trump said, “I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal – I call it the Green New Scam; withdrew from the one-sided Paris climate accord; and ended the insane and costly electric vehicle mandate.” The economic framing of US foreign policy has become paramount under Trump’s presidency, who has quite clearly discarded the long-held notion of foreign aid as a tool of US foreign policy. Trump’s axe has significantly come down, for instance, on the USAID, a major arm of America’s engagement with the world.

Trump’s return to American and world politics has fundamentally disrupted any sense of consensus and crystallisation of the world order

Speaking from the pulpit at the Munich Security Conference this year, US Vice President JD Vance delivered an eye-popping speech, lecturing Europeans on democracy and freedom of expression. The speech exposed the political, economic and cultural fault lines emerging between Trump’s America and Europe, in ways unseen before. During the Paris Summit on Artificial Intelligence as well, Vice President Vance, largely struck a discordant note calling out European digital laws for forcing American companies to comply with strict rules.

The growing rifts in the US alliance system were apparent in a recently held online G7 meeting, and at the United Nations, with the US and its major allies breaking unity on the Ukraine issue. Not only is Trump’s foreign policy drastically different from his predecessor but one that stands apart from how America has engaged with the world post-World War II. At a time when it had become a foreign policy ritual to support a multipolar world order and multilateralism, Trump’s return to American and world politics has fundamentally disrupted any sense of consensus and crystallisation of the world order.

Certainly, America’s material capabilities are still unchallenged despite the rise of new powers, but what is more uncertain is the compass that guides how American power will be deployed and wielded across the world in the next four years.

Trump’s China policy is equally bewildering for the rest of the world, as Washington reboots its de-risking strategies with Beijing. While the Trump administration’s foreign policy and national security is filled with China hawks, influential business interests within the Trump team, more particularly Elon Musk’s Tesla, have sizeable stakes in the Chinese market. In this case, European allies as well as strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are likely to double down on their respective de-risking strategies vis-à-vis China.

Greatest Worry

This time, the greatest worry on everyone’s heads is not aggressive China and its wolf warrior diplomacy, but the real task is de-risking Trump’s tariff tornadoes and the collateral damages of how he views European allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region. All major powers are hustling in the dark to protect their interests as Trump hyper-churns the political, economic and security landscape.

Trump’s threats to seize Greenland, rename the Gulf of Mexico and make Canada America’s 51st state is rebranding US foreign policy, for both supporters and haters. Trump’s policies are fundamentally based on the idea that other countries have taken undue advantage of the United States and taken it for a ride under preceding presidencies and that it is Trump’s skills as a negotiator and deal-maker that will make ‘Make America Great Again’. His self-professed ‘Art of the Deal’ is no longer mere rhetoric, but a strategic and tactical tool, inherently embedded in Trump’s presidential style.

(The Author is Director at Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies [KIIPS] and Associate Editor of India Quarterly)